Zombi & Starskream's Hero Rune Guide Library

We've been working on a new Hero Rune Guide series of videos that we think some of you may find useful. Our aim is to cover as many heroes as possible, and we want the community to help us decide who we're going to use for the up coming episodes.

Comments

I mean, of course you are gonna focus on Crit/Attack on a fast rogue like MK...or BD, or whoever.

Unsurprisingly, you probably use lotsa defensive runes on the tanky dudes. ;-) I hear Defense is good on Astrid....

I think a spreadsheet or list of all the characters along with Special rune notes would be helpful instead of 1 at a time.
You would point out interactions on why certain runes are good or bad on various dudes.

i.e.

MK -- Avoid Dodge runes due to cap. Boost Crit and lots of Attack. Note that his main attack gets +10% free crit and partnered with Blk Diamond adds 15% crit (plus some extra due to 15% skill boost) [recap of what you said basically]

Blk Dia - Crit runes to 50% mandatory due to 2.5x on crit boost. Pure attack/damage runes if using on Defense as 1st character, or solely on offense vs normal speed.

I'd also like to hear what you say about certain ambiguous champs.

Igorok - You think more tanky so he can survive, but really...past Polar Pounding he doesnt have much impact. Crit also has interesting interaction not only for more damage, but to keep FREEZING enemies who get critted. So there are tradeoffs.

Ponti - Most boost Attack/Crit hugely and use with Zen offensively to kill. I actually spec him almost pure Defensive/Health/dodge and use him in defensive PVP. This makes him surprisingly hard to kill and he absolutely dominates past round 1 due to his self-buff, animate dead, self-heal, and self-rez. I've won 4v1 because attackers are out of gas on round 2 and simply cannot kill him.

Zurk - Another tossup. On one hand, I want him to LIVE since goblins have huge healing power. BUT, him critting when he goes 1st is AMAZING to haste the whole party and give free attacks.

Kai - do you spec offensively and use him as the 1st defensive dude? OR defensively so he lives long enough to use his annoying 2nd ability and buff defense for everyone? Most ignore Kai on 1st round anyways, so maybe some extra attack isn't so bad? I spec defensive currently.

Augustus - Buff offense for 1 shotting demons? OR defensive?

Nub nub -- boosting crit makes him incredible for healing on Revenge and great in PvE. But survivability is also very important. He already has lots of health, so focus on Defense?

Sifu - boost crit so his attack pretty much guarantees Shock on the enemy and zaps rest of the team? Any potential for him to be a 1 shotter that avoids Kai defense capability?

So we kicked things off with out favourite heroes as we needed a starting point. The heroes you've included above will indeed get videos in due course, we're not just focusing on the big ones.

The next two we'll do are Tsume and Astrid as these are what have been requested in the last week or so most frequently.

As for producing a spreadsheet and leaving it at that, well we could have done, but that's not as much fun as making videos for them. You'll just have watch each of the episodes to get a feel for the points we're making

One rate limiter for us though, is the fact runes take such a large chunk of gold to simply swap about. So it hinders our experimentation with an array of builds, and we have to go on what we've experienced so far.

Maybe the devs could unlock Star's and my account gold costs for rune swapping... just a thought

I support this rune guide. It will be very helpful IMO. I agree that the devs should help you guys out. You guys have to spend a metric crap ton of gold to try different builds and what not. That takes a long time and makes videos take longer to make. It'd be helpful if they helped you out. Overall I love this rune guide.

While I'm a huge fan of what you guys do, and appreciate it very much as do a large portion of the community, I'm not a fan of the idea of devs unlocking anything special on your accounts. We are playing a game of competition and gold is hindering all of us from experimenting after all

Maybe the devs could give you the amount of gold that it requires for you to make guide. Every time they "refund" the amount of gold it took for that rune guide. Or maybe even just a set amount every time to make it less of a burden. It has to take at least a few mil to do one hero. I mean I know I have an issue with gold. So I can't imagine how it is for you guys.

I'd like to put in a request for Astrid -- I find myself debating specifically on her red runes - I have a red Focus with defense on the 2nd stat.. is that better than a much stronger battle/power rune?